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Users of Internet Explorer or Maxthon These are the most useless browsers know to man on the internet. Download a GOOD one NOW!
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I asked myself this very same question about 3 weeks ago …..
…..and decided to install it in a VM (Virtual Machine). I told a colleague I was planning to do it and he got somewhat reminiscent of his days using the “non free” version of it. He also said “We used to call it “Slow-Aris”, a comment I simply dismissed as him being humerus about the much older version of the operating system he had used.
Well although he WAS indeed being humerus, it seems he was also very right. During the installation of Open Solaris (Please remember this was in a virtual machine so it did not have full resources like a full PC would have) things started well, a pretty installer, nice and graphical but also informative and it felt, well, good. I hate using the word good to describe things but that’s about as much as I can say, it just felt good.
The installation moved on a bit and things started to slow down, then it got to the part where it was actually doing the installation after I had provided the information the system needed and let’s put it this way, I not only went for several coffees I went for several smokes and helped a few customers while it finished.
About an hour and a half later I found the installation had finished and so rebooted the VM to explore the OS and see for myself what it was like. Once again, all started well, the login screen was pretty, the login itself didn’t take too long and I was greeted with the default Gnome desktop. I was happy at this point, unfortunately this was not to continue. After some digging I discovered, although it is possible to install the KDE Desktop on Open Solaris is just wasn’t worth the hassle unless you were very seriously wanting to keep this as your main OS.
Granted I am a Linux evangelist and although I don’t particularly have an issue using, working on or installing other AIX based systems like Open Solaris, this particular adventure reminded me of why I don’t like them as much. It’s like when I get on a Mac, I love the way it looks, I like all the effort that’s gone into the GUI and I start thinking about how usable everyone says it is, then I start using it. I remember that half my bash commands won’t work, I can’t just install a package by typing a command and dragging it down from a repository, and that stupid Finda bar just confuses the crap out of me once I’ve got more than 2 or 3 applications open, not to mention the fact that I can never find anything I want to use (Like console or connecting to another machine etc) and the Mac user behind me watching me fix his machine has to show me all the keyboard shortcuts he/she uses to open things. With Open Solaris I had similar issues, I found the package manager to be a bit sketchy and left a lot to be desired, the graphical interface just looked like Linux because it was running Gnome and I realized, all they’ve done is customized it a little from the way it would look in say a default “from scratch” installation and then I noticed the speed, it was apalling.
As I said at the begging of this post, you must remember this was in a VM so it had limited resources. But, I gave it the exact same resources as my Kubuntu VM, my FreeBSD VM and even my Windows 2003 Server VM, they all run perfectly (Strangely enough I’ve never seen Windows boot as quickly as it does when installed as a VM on Linux, but that’s another post), yet Open Solaris lagged behind them all in terms of, time to boot, time to login, time to open programs once booted and time to shut down when you’ve had enough. I can only assume from this, that either it is ALWAYS this slow or it is just VERY resource hungry, more so than Windows 2003 Server, and that’s saying something!
If you’ve got a spare machine or a Virtual Environment to install it in and you fancy it, I recommend giving Open Solaris a whirl, you might find you enjoy it more than me, I know a lot of these Mac fans like OSX, BECAUSE it isn’t so customizable (Therefore not as breakable) and it just does everything for you. Open Solaris just isn’t for me though I’m afraid, sorry Sun.
Filed under: Other AIX Reviews,Product Reviews ... Comments (0)
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…. Microsoft Exchange!!!!!!!!
Well after years of wishing someone could actually create a mail client that could get rid of outlook, yet still work with Microsoft software on the network, I’m, well, disappointed.
Why am I disappointed that a mail client finally stepped up to be a viable replacement for Outlook? Because it’s not cross platform (Only works in Linux and is specifically designed for Gnome, although it does work in KDE and no doubt other desktops on Linux), it ISN’T as good as Thunderbird in a lot of different ways and in general it isn’t the best mail client out there, in my opinion.
Evolution now also sports quite a nifty backup tool that it didn’t previously have, which is good, except all it does is backup your mail files to a tar file, which you could do yourself by going to the folder the data is stored in and, well, tarring it. Now don’t get me wrong, that’s great for less technical people out there who just want to backup their mail but it still doesn’t provide a method to move that mail to another mail client and a tar file isn’t exactly something really secure like a PST file.
Ok so I’m being a little hard on Evolution here I suppose, but it kinda deserves it. Where Thunderbird really does feel like a mail client that’s been thought out, well written and in general developed for ease of use and as a geniune alternative to outlook, without feeling too far away from it, Evolution just doesn’t.
There’s a lot to analyze here when it comes to comparing mail clients, Evolution comes with a calendar built in and Thunderbird has one that you have to install as a plugin, Evolution now supports exchange and Thunderbird doesn’t, Evolution has a backup utility in it’s file menu and Thunderbird just doesn’t have one. But these minimal facts print a rather unfair picture of Thunderbird in comparison. Thunderbird actually feels like outlook, it is more responsive and more customizable, now that the MAPI protocol is Open Source I’m hoping it won’t be long before Thunderbird becomes exchange capable.
Some of you may be asking “Why does he keep saying outlook so much”, well the thing is, as much as I hate anything not open source on principal I’m also a realist and the thing is Outlook IS the best mail client out there, by far. It may not be the most compliant with other technologies and it may not be free or Open Source but it’s the easiest to use, the most reliable and it has so many features you couldn’t list them all on an A4 piece of paper without doing it in columns and using both sides.
Since I found out that Evolution had released an update and now supported Exchange (Wednesday was when I found out) I have been testing Evolution alongside Thunderbird and I have to say, I’m going back to Thunderbird. If someone asked me if this breakthrough was going to change the way people work in a Windows environment I’d have to say, no, I don’t think it will. The reality is that it can’t be used on Windows and there are very few companies or organisations out there who have an exchange server and let their client PCs use Linux, it just isn’t done. Do I think if this breakthrough had happened on Thunderbird it would change the way people work? Then yes, I do. There are a lot of people out there on Windows who already use Thunderbird at home and Outlook at work.
So come on Mozilla Devs, get the MAPI protocol compliance implemented in Thunderbird for us, give those of us who need to use a Windows PC something other than outlook. I tend to use Open Office wherever I can anyway, whether I’m on Windows or Linux or Mac but I still have to use Outlook if I need to connect to an exchange server.
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